totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[linuxgurugamer]

On 7/25/2018 at 6:44 PM, sevenperforce said:

Was reading a hit piece in the NY Post about how "Elon is a fraud" and they said, "SpaceX is a LITERAL failure to launch. Musk's rockets have crashed, blown up, or exploded so many times that he (inexplicably) made a blooper reel."

Now, the question of Elon as a person is outside the scope of this thread......but good lord that's some uncommon stupid.

I guess they don't bother to remember history.  How many rockets blew up, crashed or exploded in the early days of spaceflight?

I believe that SpaceX has had a total of 6 failures, and currently has more than 50% of the launch market.  30 launches scheduled for this year, I believe

 

[Xd the great]

13 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I guess they don't bother to remember history.  How many rockets blew up, crashed or exploded in the early days of spaceflight?

I believe that SpaceX has had a total of 6 failures, and currently has more than 50% of the launch market.  30 launches scheduled for this year, I believe

 

Their success rate is like 1% lower than that of soyuz.

Still, I think the "24 hour turnaround time" is impossible with the falcon 9, the atmospheric damage alone is too much. Plus there is no need for that.

1 launches per week per coast? You dont need a turnaround time of 48 hours.

[linuxgurugamer]

3 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Their success rate is like 1% lower than that of soyuz.

Still, I think the "24 hour turnaround time" is impossible with the falcon 9, the atmospheric damage alone is too much. Plus there is no need for that.

1 launches per week per coast? You dont need a turnaround time of 48 hours.

What's the success rate of Falcon 9 (ignore Falcon 1, that was a different rocket)

[Xd the great]

12 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

What's the success rate of Falcon 9 (ignore Falcon 1, that was a different rocket)

3 fails.

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, Xd the great said:

3 fails.

One RUD in flight.  One RUD during fueling.

Not sure what you are counting as the other, the cargo that failed to launch when put into the correct trajectory?  The extra cargo sacrificed on an early launch that had a merlin failure (the primary cargo was delivered, but the primary customer also demanded the reserve fuel kept in reserve and not spent on delivering the extra cargo)?

[Ultimate Steve]

51 minutes ago, wumpus said:

One RUD in flight.  One RUD during fueling.

Not sure what you are counting as the other, the cargo that failed to launch when put into the correct trajectory?  The extra cargo sacrificed on an early launch that had a merlin failure (the primary cargo was delivered, but the primary customer also demanded the reserve fuel kept in reserve and not spent on delivering the extra cargo)?

Correct, so depending on how you count, 2, 2.5, or 3 failures.

[tater]

You'd also want to break down failures probably at least by a couple of sub types, or at least major variants. F9, F9 1.1 (the stretch, octoweb, etc) F9 "Full Thrust", and now Block 5 (major changes).

So far, they've flown 32 in a row (counting FH) sucessfully of the newer types (densified props, etc). Total of all the FT+ variants is 1 loss in 41 (pad failure). So even counting Amos-6, by the end of next year F9 will have about the same record as Shuttle (~1:70 failure) assuming no new losses.

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Correct, so depending on how you count, 2, 2.5, or 3 failures.

The partial failure was the original, short F9, pre octoweb, etc. Substantially different than all the later versions. They iterate a lot, so it's hard to lump subtypes, but I really count a few variants that almost deserve different names.

[tater]

Currently this only applies to SpaceX, so I'll put this here:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/congress-requires-military-to-consider-reusable-rockets-for-launch-contracts/

Quote

After 25 years, military told to move from “expendable” to “reusable” rockets

...

The US Congress appears to have noticed these significant achievements. As part of the conference report, Congress directs the Air Force to report back on how the military will ensure the used rockets are safe to use and how much money the government will save as a result. It is quite a change from the state of play just 13 years ago, when ULA was dominant and SpaceX was roundly dismissed by the courts and the broader aerospace community.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

9 hours ago, Scotius said:

Does that mean SpaceX have enough saved Block 4 boosters for all predicted FH launches? Or are they so optimistic about BFR being available with no delays?

Like @Tullius said, there will be Block 5 FH cores, but they'll be specially constructed as FH cores. There's still 2-3 FH launches on the manifest. I think what we'll see it used for the next few years isn't so much heavy satellites but satellites delivered direct to GSO (as opposed to GTO and circularizing themselves). ArabSat 6a is about 1000 kilos lighter than the recently-launched, scale-tipping TelStar 18v, so it may be interesting to see if it gets bumped down to a F9, if only to get it launched quicker.

[Jaff]

So if the F9 is so good now as a BV then surely a BV FH is even better at launching heavy stuff? (I.e something much bigger than Telstar) 

[IncongruousGoat]

43 minutes ago, Jaff said:

So if the F9 is so good now as a BV then surely a BV FH is even better at launching heavy stuff? (I.e something much bigger than Telstar) 

Nobody builds satellites that big, and even if someone did there's a good chance they wouldn't fit into the FH payload fairing. Plus, to get anywhere close to the full payload capacity of FH you need to throw the center booster away, which is something SpaceX probably doesn't want to do. FH is a vehicle conceived way back in the days of F9 1.0, to address a design deficiency that just doesn't exist anymore. It may be cool, but it doesn't serve much of a purpose by existing.

[magnemoe]

38 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Nobody builds satellites that big, and even if someone did there's a good chance they wouldn't fit into the FH payload fairing. Plus, to get anywhere close to the full payload capacity of FH you need to throw the center booster away, which is something SpaceX probably doesn't want to do. FH is a vehicle conceived way back in the days of F9 1.0, to address a design deficiency that just doesn't exist anymore. It may be cool, but it doesn't serve much of a purpose by existing.

No nobody has an LEO payload for it, it might be an option for GEO missions like the air force one there the option is disposable first stage or heavy. 
Deep space missions is also an option, BFR timeline is Musk optimistic and I'm not talking about the Mars missions here. 

[RCgothic]

Yes, most of Falcon Heavy's theoretical load capacity end up on orbit as Stage 2 propellant.

So they have a few options:

Direct insertion to GSO.

Missions to deep space.

Aid recovery of S2.

[sevenperforce]

The kerolox MVac doesn't have nearly the kind of excellent Isp as, say, a Centaur's RL-10, but the MVac is sitting on a Falcon Family upper stage, which has a mass ratio that makes Centaur look like an Estes. Thus Falcon Heavy's ability to throw 5 New Horizons at Pluto, without needing gravity assists.

The trouble is that the only stuff which goes into deep space is science payloads, and those have ridiculously long dev spans.

[tater]

 

[tater]

Direct link to livestream... what are they doing?

https://www.pscp.tv/w/1MYGNqzlDMzKw

Looks like they are using a different rig than FL. The crane went up, and hooked the wire up, then brought it down to the leg, vs the FL rig that seemed to have a wire for each leg at the lifting cap.

[Xd the great]

I heard that spaceX wanted to test reusing stage 2 of falcon 9. How will they do it?

Heavy config and the delta wings+cold gas thrusters+merlin engines? Or just superdraco?

[tater]

Bouncy castle. (that's always the answer)

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

I heard that spaceX wanted to test reusing stage 2 of falcon 9. How will they do it?

Heavy config and the delta wings+cold gas thrusters+merlin engines? Or just superdraco?

There's nothing really solid.

Back before F9 existed, they made this video:

Which shows a forward PICA-X heatshield, retracting nozzle extension, and tailfirst propulsive landing on a engine separate from the Mvac. However, they have talked about other ways between now and then. In 2014, Elon Musk said they wouldn't be able to:

Then in april 2017, Elon Musk said that they would try to recover the second stage:

But during the (IIRC) September 2017 BFR unveiling, they said that they would stop development of F9 entirely after B5 and FH, only building enough of them to hold over until ITS was flying.

Then in april 2018, Elon Musk tweeted that they were going to try to use a Ballute + bouncy house combo:

To bring back (possibly not reuse) the second stage.

In short, I would guess that there are very few details about this even within SpaceX, considering how low of a priority this likely is.

[Xd the great]

Gah, when will there be a fully reuseable rocket?

BFR COME ON

[Ultimate Steve]

15 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Gah, when will there be a fully reuseable rocket?

BFR COME ON

I've already built several fully reusable rockets, they're just tiny

[Xd the great]

7 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I've already built several fully reusable rockets, they're just tiny

I mean orbital class...

[Ultimate Steve]

5 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

I mean orbital class...

They can orbit my room, I guess

[StrandedonEarth]

34 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

They can orbit my room, I guess

At first glance I thought that said "yo momma"

[Xd the great]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

At first glance I thought that said "yo momma"

Meh.

Anyway, when will the first flight of bfr be?